#replies mantisgodsdomain

[aquilamage]

For Rain World - you don't have to be the exact symbol on the door! Anything at or above that level will do, it's a minimum requirement, not an exact one. For other advice... uhh, remember that you can pounce? As the Monk you'll find a lot more success running away from things than fighting them. You can also feed lizards if you want.

oh thanks, that's super useful to know! I'm assuming pouncing means the long jump? that has helped with getting some places I just haven't figured the coordination for the games controls out super great yet. Feed lizards...hm

[aquilamage]

Please do ramble, we are very interested.

SO, [starting from the beginning because my posting on this has been sporadic and from what I can tell not the most comprehensive] I had a funny joke theory when the game first brought up the idea of Leif having descendants that it was gonna involve Mothiva, which I accidentally got attached to even though it's obviously not a thing.

But anyway my thoughts are: Grandpa canonically mentions that he has brothers [which I get why they don't have Leif chase that mention in canon but also. ?!?] so obviously Mothiva is the child of one of them. I very consistently go back and forth on whether I want/think it's logistically/thematically sensible for Grandpa to be Leif and Muse's only child with the other siblings being from a later relationship/Muse wanting more kids or if they're all related to Leif.

What I am sure on is that I like to think Mothiva had a close relationship and a lot of admiration for her grandma Muse when she was growing up, and that her stories about her time scouting for Elizant I were a good part of Mothiva's motivation to eventually become an explorer. (Also I know I've mentioned this bit at least once probably more but my brain goes insane every time I think about Mothiva's kick attack combined with Leif's one mention of Muse's fighting capabilities being that she had "pretty strong kicks" so you know where I think she learned that one from).

Although by close I mean emotionally, not physically. For Mothiva's immediate family situation, she grew up in Bugaria but outside of the ant kingdom proper [dont' ask me where that's part's not my problem], so while Muse did come visit it wasn't exactly a super regular thing. Generally I think her parents were decent and did their best with her, she was also the younger middle of a large pack of siblings so I think she dealt with some issues with needing more attention/affection than she felt like she got. And while Muse definitely gave time to all her kids and grandkids I think she got along most with Mothiva among her siblings so for Mothiva that additional attention also had an effect on her.

Which leads into my thoughts on Mothiva's feelings on Muze. Which are that she fucking hates her so much. Her cousin is an only child, never having to fight with siblings for attention. Who gets to live in the Ant Kingdom, far more interesting than her middle-of-nowhere home, and where she sees their grandmother all the time. Who takes almost perfectly after Muse in looks. Who's literally named after her. Years of compounded childhood jealousy combined with Mothiva's anger issues, and it's so fucking delicious to think about.

Don't know exactly when Muse dies but I think it's when Mothiva's about 12-15, and not too long after that is when Mothiva decides to run off to the ant kingdom on her own, change her name, and bank everything on becoming an idol both for its own sake and as a way to eventually become an explorer.

[two big sidetrack notes: 1) the whole thing of Mothiva's feelings on Muze kind of developed out of me tossing around the idea of Mothiva's father big resenting Muse and Grandpa especially because he felt like Grandpa was obviously the favorite child because of his parenthood situation (95% sibling jealously 5% yes there was a difference to the feelings dynamic even though Muse didn't actually like him better and tried not to make it a thing in general). and the idea of that translating even better onto Muze and Mothiva. and 2) it also comes from a thought about in my "mothiva gets fired "au,"" she at some point going out and about with Leif (disguised) and them running into Muze. Mothiva recognizes Muze instantly of course and is pissed off about being reminded of her everything about her (especially now that she's doing just fine while Mothiva's having a crisis). And then on top of that, since Leif has no reason to try and conceal it, it gets dropped that Leif and Muze are 'cousins or whatever' which has Mothiva all WHAT and internally freaking out now]

[aquilamage]

We have a Vi playlist we can offer you many songs. Depending on your music taste we can offer you Monet Issues by Chase Petra, Empires by The Electro Swing Circus, April by Caravan Palace, Anything You Can Do by Bernadette Peters and Tom Wopat (specifically for the Guy Parts because she feels like the sort of bug to brag about being able to open any safe and live on bread and cheese), Gives You Hell by The All-American Rejects, Teenagers by MCR, and Fly Home by The Living Tombstone. There are more but these are the first we've got on hand.

Also in songs from our Vi Playlist we have loud mouth by tiLLie, It's Alright, Back In School, and Wrecking Ball by Mother Mother, Runs In The Family by Amanda Palmer, Let's Face It I'm Cute by 11 Acorn Lane, Break My Stride by Matthew Wilder, I'm Gonna Win by Rob Cantor, Lollipop by MIKA, Giver by K.Flay, I Love It by Icona Pop (ft. Charli XCX), Breathe by CircusP, PUNKBITCH by 3OH!3, Brand X by Nero's Day At Disneyland, The Bidding by Tally Hall, Brokopoly by Lyre Le Temps, DROWN by AViVA, and World's Smallest Violin by AJR.

...we know this is A Lot of songs but trust us, it's cutting out a lot of more situational/more "vi would probably listen to this song" songs. It's a long playlist. We think she would like 3OH!3 in general. In terms of other characters, uhh. The Ballad Of Sara Berry is a Mothiva song, we've got a playlist for her too. The Hearse Song, in particular the cover by Madame Macabre, feels like a Leif song. We've had Me and Mr. Wolf by The Real Tuesday Weld as a Mothizasp song. Life of Crime by Balduin and Wolfgang Lohr (ft. Scarlett Quinn) is a good Astotheles song. The Deadly Sexuality Of The Mantis is pretty good for both Kina and Maki (yes, we know the title sounds Questionable for this particular pair of bastards, it's a "this situation sucks for everyone involved" song about conforming to societal expectations and getting fucked over in the process). We use Dance to Forget by TryHardNinja and Nina Zeitlin as a Zommoth song we also occasionally attribute to The Watcher. Kubrick And The Beast is a Kabbu song.

That's all for Music In Your Inbox Night we're certain this sheds some sort of light on our music taste and we hope this helps

It does help! At least in the sense of giving me a place to start. I don't recognize most of these as songs I've heard before so now I get to go through and give them a try. Thank you!

[aquilamage]

Hey, we remember you saying something about Vi not being too great at machines a while back. Would you mind quoting that at us? We can't figure out where that dialogue was and we don't want to trawl through all of the dialogue in the game to find the relevant line.

sure! I can't recall the context of me saying that right now, but there's definitely a couple moments that fit with that I can find

[from spying some of the workers in the golden settlement power plant; probably the most relevant one]

Vi: The Power Plant's way cooler than the factory. How come I never got any shifts here!?

Leif: Those Bees seem to be operating very complex machines. Do you know how to?

Vi: I, uh, I'm sure I'd press the right buttons…

Kabbu: Thankfully for everyone, exploring's your one true calling!

[same location, the first examination of the energy converter machine; definitely another supporting piece]

Kabbu: Vi, what is this machine?

Vi: That's the Energy Converter! It uh...converts all the energy!

Leif: That's a very helpful description, Vi.

Kabbu: It must use the power generated from the windmill to power the Factory's core!

Vi: Uh...yep! That's what the Power Plant does!

[examining the computer in the overseer's office in the factory; technically not about vi specifically but does show she doesn't happen to know any more than the other two]

Textbox: This machine is too complex for us…

[from talking to the termite who shows up in the rubber prison security room in postgame; not directly related but does imply that she's not already into tech and not interested in starting even for her favorite motivator: money]

Tectec: It seems this place could use more of my help, so I'll stay a while.

Tectec: ...And it pays like 80 berries an hour.

Vi: WOAH! Tech pays a LOT!

Leif: Gonna pick up science, Vi?

Vi: ...Nope.

Kabbu: Well then... Let's get going, team

[aquilamage]

💫💞💝💋💌

💫what is your favorite kind of comment/feedback?

First thought: any kind of comment lol I am such a slut for the few scraps of attention I do get on my writing.

Second thought: the ones that spark further conversation but especially the kinds where the other person just gets exactly where I'm coming from because that's also how they happen to approach the story/character(s)/whatever. because usually that leads to a lot of mutual excitement and more cool story ideas (has happened with a few people but biggest shout-out to unnecessarygayfeelings if you read this sorry I've just kind of dropped out of aa)

💞what's the most important part of a story for you? the plot, the characters, the worldbuilding, the technical stuff (grammar etc), the figurative language

Characters! The biggest thing I find myself caring about and worrying over in my writing is about whether people in a fic are in-character/at least a believable take on them/interesting. Probably from a combination of that being one of the biggest things that matters to me in reading fics, and also like. characters are what make stories interesting for me in the first place, most of the time. Also for my writing a small offshoot of that concern is whether I'm writing characters internally consistent as in, do the ways they act and think and change make sense and flow consistently? (of course whether or not I succeed at any of this is another thing altogether)

💝what is a fic that got a different response than you were expecting?

probably the one motw aa fic where two or three separate people were like "is Sebastian secretly the monster" which I have no idea where they got that from but it was kinda funny

💋when you leave comments on a fic, do you want to hear back from the writer?

It's always nice to hear from them, particularly when it turns into longer/deeper discussions about the fic or the media the fic is based on, but I try not to go into writing a comment expecting a response esp not anything in particular (both to be fair to the author because they don't owe me a response and also so to avoid potential disappointment if I did create expectations)

💌share something with us about an up-and-coming work (WIP) that has you excited!

so...being honest here, I've had very little motivation to or excitement over actually writing for this whole calendar year, overall. and even less actual writing. so while I do have some things that I abstractly want to work on, I can't accurately describe anything as "up-and-coming."

I mean...I want to finished my chaptered hk fic, both for its own sake and so I can finally have completed a thing with chapters. I sat down after writing the previous paragraph and reread what I have for my one moth family agenda fic and I like it, I just don't have much further I know where to go with it. And. I'm still enjoying tossing around the 'mothiva gets fired' stuff in my head (like. the idea that she's trying to dodge like three different things that could get her fired only to get hit by something else. and her completely fucking up with being horrible to zasp. and then just her being a bitch while living with team snakemouth. and wrestling with "ok but how would mothiva/jaune happen as a dynamic" because it's funny and I kinda want to stick it in there too)

uh. I don't know if that answers the actual question at all. but I am tempted to post some of the snippets I have from something now